Autumn in the High Country is as awe-inspiring a time and place as any I’ve seen. And it was this reason that we left Alaska when we did. We wanted to be in Boone for the color explosion in the turning of the leaves. After leaving Shane and Angie’s, however, we rode ourselves right into more severe weather as we cruised “up the mountain” toward Boone and Grandfather Campground. I really blew it on deciding on which route to take, and late in the evening, we found ourselves on mountainous switchbacks for miles. This was clearly no night for mistakes, rain pummeling us at every turn, wind blowing flotsam and jetsam continually across our path, and a fallen tree blocking our way for hours. Well, whatever. Nothing new here, and we finally made the campground late Tuesday. Turns out, the harrowing storm brought some seriously good, cool and crisp autumn weather. And we woke Wednesday, the scenery was indeed stunning.
So the campground was gonna work!! We spent the next few days roaming the area, and although the weather wasn’t always accommodating
(guess where this was heading!!)
we did run into some super days.
We spend a lot of time at the old, familiar playground at Valle Crucis:
and did some driving around:
This place is, as expected, amazing. The storm blew away a quite a few of the leaves from the higher elevations, but the valleys and some of the more hidden areas were full of color. Boone really is one of our favorite places on the planet, and to this point, braving the nightmare of the previous days’ storms have proven fruitful indeed. We will stick around until Sunday. I have a few friends that graduated App with me coming into town this weekend, and we have a few plans that included watching football, watching football, and if we have time, arguing about watching football.
AAA Trout 